It’s the end of a presidential election year, and Donald Trump is our President elect.After all the hate speeches and attacks on just about anyone who isn’t a white, straight, cisgender, middle-class male, half of the country voted for this man to be in office.
This legacy of hate has left an irrefutable stain, not just on our country but on the entire world. This man has gone from calling all Mexicans rapists and equating Muslims with terrorism, to a plan to fill the entirety of Guantάnamo Bay. The administration he is putting in place even has the audacity to suggest any woman who receives an abortion should be imprisoned.
When we first heard these claims the world stood on its head, “Can he say that?”, “He said that on TV?”, “You can’t say that on TV!” Flash-forward to today when we don’t even bat an eye to whenever Trump makes an absurd comment or statement, “What did Trump say now?” or “What’s the latest Trump scandal?” When his lewd comments about women in 2005 were leaked to the press a number of people were defending his statements by writing it off as “locker room talk” and dismissing this as just another case of “Trump will be Trump.”
We’ve been to subjected to bombshell after bombshell and we have grown numb from the amount of horrific statements that Trump has said. Now that the election is over, there are people who still want to excuse the actions and words of this man. Maybe he didn’t mean what he said and maybe he’ll be different, although the chances are slim to none, the issue is that his actions and words are what brought him here and has only served to increase the hate in our culture.
There’s been a severe spike in hate crimes across the country against anyone who looks like a minority group. These have been done in the name of the president-elect; because Trump has broken down countless boundaries on what is acceptable and unacceptable, people are now putting his words into hate crimes.
The point is that I’m scared, as a transgender woman I have no idea how difficult my life will become in the future. Ten transgender people have committed suicide since election day because they were terrified of what will happen to them. Almost everyone I know is terrified about what the future holds, but doing nothing about this situation is as good as accepting whatever happens these next 4 years.
Now, more than ever, we need to come together and fight back in whatever way we can, whether that is a small donation to an organization like Planned Parenthood or being at a protest. Already there have been an outcry of protests across the country reminding the country and the world that this is not normal. This man is not normal, and his election by dehumanizing everyone but himself is not normal. We need to stand together as one, and show those being attacked that they are not alone.